Drink project didn’t deliver

A PROJECT aimed at tackling Daventry’s underage drinking problems has not been a complete success.

The comments, from a councillor involved in the project and local police, are aimed at the Community Alcohol Partnership (CAP). They say although CAP made good progress in identifying the problems, it failed to solve all of them.

The CAP pilot has now been superseded by a police project run by Sgt Sam Dobbs who said: “There’s no formal link between my project and CAP.

“The issues surrounding underage drinking and related antisocial behaviour and violence were identified by CAP and CAP was trying to pick them up. Not all the ideas worked.”

The new police project has picked up some of the unspent money from CAP along with leaflets and posters. CAP was run by the Daventry District and South Northamptonshire Community Safety Parternship. It used a variety of initiatives to help reduce anti-social behaviour while highlighting the health risks of drinking to parents and retailers.

Deputy chairman of the partnership Cllr Alan Hills said: “Underage drinking does remain a high priority and is one of our biggest problems.

“Overall CAP was successful in getting the message across, but underage drinking is one of those things where you don’t see immediate effects. The long term effects of the pilot are unknown.”

Jean Morgan, chairman of the partnership, said: “The CAP project has succeeded in highlighting the risks of underage drinking to young people, their families, and also retailers and licensees in the west of the county.

“The partnership is currently evaluating the project and no decision has been made as yet as to whether it will be rolled out across the county.”

Earlier this month Sgt Dobbs’ new police project was kicked off by a meeting between police, teenagers, school representatives and shop owners.

Suggestions made for that project included showing parents CCTV footage of how young people behaved while drunk.